I read most of The Hobbit last night. I’d been reading it in very small chunks to Curious Capitalist Jr. over the past few months. He’s perfectly capable of reading it himself, but didn’t seem to want to, so I started reading it to him. Yesterday we dropped CC Jr. off at summer camp, so I figured I’d read ahead in the book—which I read once 30-35 years ago, but the plot of which I had completely forgotten. I made it to the beginning of the very last chapter, then fell fell asleep.
A couple hours later I awoke in a cold sweat. The Hobbit is something of heist story—a bunch of dwarves and a hobbit attempt to steal (or, more accurately, reclaim) a vast treasure buried under a mountain and guarded by a dragon. I awoke from a dream in which I had written a book that was the (fictional?) account of a heist, involving treasure (or maybe just cash, my memories are a little vague here) buried under a mountain somewhere in South America and guarded by the local government. My book publicist had decided that it would be a good idea for me to recreate this heist—that is, go down to South America and steal the treasure/money—in hopes of getting more media attention for the book. I was getting extremely unnerved about this dangerous prospect when I awoke.
I remained unnerved for a few minutes—it all still seemed quite real. In fact, I got even more unnerved as a tiny bit of waking reality crept in and I thought, Not only do I have to risk my life on this South American caper to promote my book, but I also have to contribute to the TPMCafe Book Club all week (because mine is the featured book). No publicity is worth this!
Anyway, now I’m completely awake. There will be no South American heist. But I do still have to contribute to the TPMCafe Book Club all week. Here’s my first post.